The Propagandist
by Quirel
Summary: The Christmas Holidays, the time Josh Boltzmann dreads. Working for the Department of Public Information means he's writing propaganda from nine to five, five days a week. Hopefully, he'll have the inspiration for something more life-affirming this year.


**1225 Hours, 14th November 2535 (Military Calendar)  
Meeting room 4-B, Department of Public Information Office  
15557 Elm Lane, View Dias, Haven**

"Gentlemen," Miles said, at the head of the meeting table. He was addressing a group of casually dressed people, some who had the ambition to at least show up to work in white logoless shirts. They could be accountants. They could be consultants. They could hold any number of faceless middle-management jobs.

They thought of themselves as writers. Real writers who claimed to work for a living called them propagandists, as did everyone else.

"We've all grown attached to him, starting when we were young," Miles continued. "We grew up with him as a surrogate father for one month of the year. But public interest in him is waning, and he grows more out of touch with modern culture as the years go by. I know we all will miss him, but it's time to let him go with dignity. It's time we killed off Santa Claus."

There was sporadic laughter around the table. Someone else raised their hand. "Let's have him fight Jack Frost. That battle for the future of Christmas could be a whole miniseries, and then we can do spinoff media about the future of the North Pole, how the Mrs. is coping and what the helper elves are doing to keep the business running."

"And how do we tie all this into buying war bonds and joining up?"

"Forget the battle with Jack Frost, then. We do a single Christmas Special about the UNSC shooting down Santa. 'Please buy more bonds so we can buy sensors that tell the difference between Santa's sleigh and a Covenant Corvette.'"

Someone at the end of the table finished chewing his donut and stood up out of his chair. "Cut it out, guys. We told the exact same jokes last year. Does anyone have any new ideas, or are we going to stick to more reruns this time around?"

Everyone glanced around uneasily, not wanting to speak up and prove him right.

"Fine," Josh said. "If you excuse me, I'll go bang my head against my keyboard until something original falls out."

* * *

**1340 Hours, Josh Boltzmann's Cubicle**

You had to be a masochist to be a Department of Public Information employee, if you had work ethic. The sole purpose of the DPI was to churn out propaganda and get people to buy war bonds or enlist. And it took a lot of baldfaced lying to get people to enlist, when the enemy had handheld directed energy weapons that could melt through an engine block in one shot. Mainly for that reason, there was no love lost between the DPI and the armed forces of the UNSC.

Compounding the problem was the fact that a certain greasebag had once said "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth" and neglected to mention the quality side of the quantity/quality coin. Therefore, the DPI had the market cornered on B-movies, pulp comics, and dime novels. All noise, loud, repetitive, circus music. Buy, buy, buy, join, join, join, win, win, win!"

In his third year of working at the DPI, Josh had discovered why the United Earth Government put up with the DPI, when their yearly budget could pay for the cost of a Marathon cruiser's hull. It was contrast. It was cover noise. The blatant propaganda and egregious incompetence distracted the proletariat, made them look at the right hand while the left hand did its work. People felt so clever, rejecting the audacious lies of the DPI, and yet fell for the subtle half-truths presented by Section Three everywhere else. The minor changes and the slant that books and movies and comics and TV shows had to make if they wanted interplanetary distribution were rarely picked up on.

The biggest irony in his life, Josh decided years ago, was that he was clever enough to see how this lunatic asylum of incompetent writers, directors, and actors functioned. And yet he belonged here. He was just as bad at his chosen profession as the rest of them. He just had a work ethic.

As he tried to solve a Rubiks Cube, he wondered what he ought to do. The cube, what he called his "Writer's Block", had sat on his keyboard for two months, a whole new record. It was proof that he was running out of ideas, slowly becoming another shill for the DPI.

He decided that Something Had To Be Done about it. Something they would remember him for. Something for the history books. Something subversive, even, to prove that he wasn't just another Dippie. Preferably, something more subversive than hiring gangbangers out to paint camo on tanks and Hogs in exchange for community service hours (in his defense, it had worked well. Only moderate levels of touching up by a squad of Marines had been needed to eliminate the gang signs. Still a success in Josh's book).

"Still have writer's block?" Miles asked from the door of the cubicle.

"Ordinarily, I'd have a snappy comeback," Josh said, wagging the Rubiks Cube. "That's how bad my block is."

Miles smiled. "Hey, try working on those posters. Maybe you'll get some inspiration there."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Yes, either the batch of posters done by a five year old photographer amped up on sugar, or the ones done by an out of work artist who usually does covers for comic books. _Fantasy_ comic books."

"They aren't that bad!"

"Not that bad?" Josh demanded. He seized the tablet off his desk and scrolled through the posters in question. "OK, this one has a Marine standing tall, rifle raised above his head, scowling like he's either the baddest man on the planet or he's passing a dookie loaded with concertina wire. Or maybe it's the lightning striking his gun."

"Yea-"

"And in front of him are cowering Covenant, because a puny human getting electrocuted by God and is about to have his bullets explode in his gun is _clearly_ a force to be reckoned with."

Miles held the tablet out, not convinced. "Josh, you rip into everything like this."

"Check the guy's arms. He was probably a dwarf or troll holding a battleax. Mr. Fantasy 'Artist' traced over one of his old covers and didn't even bother changing the position of the hands."

Miles took a second look and raised his eyebrows. "Huh. Never noticed that before."

"You never do," Josh moaned. "I should have joined the Marines."

"And get blown apart by glass needles?" Miles asked as he passed the tablet back. "In here, you don't even have to worry about papercuts. Can you finish the posters by 5:00?"

"Yeah, I'll try," Josh said, resigning himself to the task. When Miles had gone, he picked up the tablet and went through the posters in need of taglines to distract people from the budget artwork. After a while, he leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander.

He picked up a paper memo about conserving electricity and half-heartedly sawed at the the tip of his finger. When he failed to break skin, he tossed the paper memo at a recycling bin like a frisbee, and winced when the edge nicked the flesh between forefinger and thumb.

He stared at the shallow cut as blood slowly seeped through. _Now_ he felt like a proper idiot, and the fact that he'd proven Miles wrong again was little consolation.

He stuck the wound in his mouth while he shuffled through his desk, looking for bandages. With one hand, he poured the bandage packets out of the box, peeled one open, and stuck it on.

He glanced at the instructions, figuring that he might do something wrong and give himself blood poisoning the way this day was going. Then he looked at the box again , lost in thought now that inspiration had struck.

* * *

**Office of Naval Intelligence Communique #12549/213/K1-M1/1****  
Encryption: White  
Encryption Key: RGD-11  
From: Jack Dainson, Domestic Analyst (Section One) [LocDAT]  
To: Ken Banes, Senior Field Liaison (Section One) [LocDAT]**

Ken,**  
**

_Something just came up. Buggered if I know what it is, but it might be big. A DPI employee, name of Josh Boltzmann, just took a guided tour of a Genedyne factory. Supposedly a 'Fact-Finding Tour.'"_

_Query: What would a Dippie need to know about a factory that assembles medical kits? A quick glance at the DPI's roster shows no media releases related to medicine in the near future. And since when did they care about factual accuracy?_

_A quick search online showed that the factory in question packages PPM and bandages, prints the instructions, and assembles the final kits._

_It's out in left field, yes, but in the case of such a sensitive area, paranoia is warranted._

_How are Carol and the kids?_

**ADDENDUM:**_ This same individual, on the same day, purchased approximately thirty greeting cards. I'm looking it up, but I doubt a middle-management DPI employee has that large of a social network._

_Again, it's weird, but it's always the weird things that show 'em up. Remember the case of the Koslovich and the Croutons?_

* * *

**1112 Hours, November 23, Josh Boltzmann's cubicle**

Josh carefully arranged the last card in his journal, right beside his notes. For the first time in a long time, he could actually stand this job. His little side project gave him something to distract himself during the meetings, something to smile about when he wanted to mail his coworkers back to their apartments one piece at a time. And he hadn't felt like that in a few days.

Why bother with 'subversive' when you could do something audacious? Something they wouldn't dare lock you up for?

"Hey, Josh?" Miles asked after knocking on the cubical. "Any last-minute changes to the script before we submit it for approval?"

Josh reached for his tablet and called the script up. "No, not really. Nothing could salvage this." With a flick of his finger, he scrolled through the pages. Why even bother with the movie? It was practically a scene-for-scene remake of an older DPI war movie, with the Covenant swapped in place of the Innies. Except the setting had been moved from Haven to Sigma Octanus IV (And it was to be filmed in Africa).

"Wait," Josh said. "The interrogation scene. We've got a squiddie commander in captivity, the Hero is arguing with it over why the Covenant are exterminating Humanity. Hero destroys its argument, leaves, and the Elite commits seppuku later. Cut."

"Yeah. What about it?" Miles asked.

"It was _merely_ lame when the movie had rebs as enemies, but it's awful down. Let's just cut the conversion part and have the Elite affirm that Humanity needs to be destroyed, for that is the will of the Gods. It later gets killed attacking the guards."

Miles pursed his lips. "Not sure the censors will go for that."

"They won't approve of something that makes the enemy look monstrous and uncompromising?"

"Ok, you got me," Miles conceded. "Can you type that up in ten minutes?"

"Sure can."

When lunch rolled around, Josh spent most of his break staring at a toy treasure chest he had on one of his shelves. When he first started working here, he had held a mock ceremony to bind his soul into a needle, pushed the needle into a china egg, and locked the egg inside the chest. That way, he couldn't sell it and it couldn't be tarnished by the things he did here.

Had he just sold out by dressing a pile of crap as something other than crap, or was he putting his work ethic to use?

* * *

**Office of Naval Intelligence Communique #****12549/213/K1-M1/2****  
Encryption: White  
Encryption Key: RGD-11****  
From: Ken Banes, Senior Field Liaison (Section One) [LocDAT]**  
** To: Jack Dainson, Domestic Analyst (Section One) [LocDAT]  
**

_Carol is fine; morning sickness isn't bothering her as much this time around. Junior is asking some awkward questions, but we're doing alright. =D_

_As for your potential Innie, I can't help but feel that this is nothing. He could easily be fact-finding for a job in the distant future (unlikely) or he's job shopping, looking to escape the lunatic asylum. The cards are more puzzling: If he's sending a signal, wouldn't one card work as well as thirty? This could be psychology, engineered to make us doubt it's a signal, but no attention is better than any. What is the worst he could do, by the way?_

_Finally, the less you remind me of the Koslovic incident, the happier I am. XP_

**Office of Naval Intelligence Communique #****12549****/213****/K1-M1/3****  
Encryption: White  
Encryption Key: RGD-11  
From: Jack Dainson, Domestic Analyst (Section One) [LocDAT]  
To: Ken Banes, Senior Field Liaison (Section One) [LocDAT]**

_Good to hear. Will be sending something over. Can Carol eat candied nuts?"_

_Further examination reveals that Josh Boltzmann spent a lot of time talking with the IT manager at the factory, who is involved with the instruction printers. The worst he could do is fiddle with the instructions. Blowing the plant up wouldn't hurt the front lines as much, and the medicine is watched too closely for him to contaminate it. Those instructions, on the other hand, are printed in five languages so the average John can use them on the front lines with little training. If Josh were to alter the instructions so they recommended the use of 100cc of PPM instead of 50cc, or two antibiotic tablets for small cuts, we'd have a disaster on our hands. The number of men sickened or killed would be demoralizing if we miss it, and it would be expensive to recall all the medical kits he can sabotage._

_As I said before, the danger warrants the paranoia._

**

* * *

1850 Hours, 2nd December, Willow Creek Apartment Complex**_  
_

Josh stared at the slip of paper in his hand, matching the number scrawled on it with the number of the apartment he was standing in front of. Before he could knock, the door opened, revealing the IT manager from the Genedyne plant.

"Hey," Josh said. "I got the cards worked out, Mr. Hall."

The manager took the memory drive and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. For the first time, Josh realized that Mr. Hall was wearing gloves and a long sleeved shirt, even when he was in his own apartment, off duty.

"Do you have time for coffee?"

"Yeah, sure," Josh replied. "I'm off work for the day."

The apartment was a fairly standard affair, with only a kitchen, living room, and a bedroom. As an IT manager, Hall ought to be able to afford a better place, a fact backed up by the wall-to-wall entertainment system.

"So, if you do this, you won't lose your job, will you?"

"Call me Tom. Mr. Hall sounds like I'm still in the Marine Corps," Mr. Hall replied. "And no, the company hates firing people. Training just costs too much. The guys in accounting might raise Hell, but nobody can say this is a bad thing."

"Good. I don't want to get you fired over this."

Tom quit pouring the coffee and gave Josh a hard look. "Why wouldn't this be worth my job?"

"We're just adding little Christmas cards to the instructions," Josh said. "It's not any more important than the stuff I do at the DPI."

"Wrong, Josh," Tom said. He rolled up his right sleeve and removed the glove, revealing white, hairless skin and missing fingernails. "Christmas Eve, 2521. I'm the only one on the base sober enough to count to ten. So, when somebody starts juggling the grenades with the white stripes, I'm the only one who tries to stop him. White phosphorus burns are as bad as you can get, and I had them all over my arms and the front of my torso. The fact that the doctors patched me back together so well is nothing short of miraculous."

"Christmas miracle?" Josh asked, before realizing he'd interrupted. He'd been listening, but his mouth had been running while his brain was thinking.

"If it had been any other time of the year, it would've been an ordinary miracle," Tom said irritably. "It's a real fast way to ruin someone's life, let alone their holidays. And if I had known that the rest of Humanity gave a crap, I wouldn't have spent a few years wallowing in self-pity. You're doing the right thing here, even if you didn't realize how important it is, and I wish someone had thought of it sooner."

Josh sat at the counter for a few minutes, nursing his coffee. Tom, just as silently plugged the memory drive into a tablet and scrolled through Josh's work. At last, he grunted approval.

"Very good. I notice you didn't sign your name."

"Yeah," Josh replied. "I was going to, but it just didn't feel right, making it that personal."

"It's good, it's good. It makes it sound like you're speaking for all of us, not just a lone man. We've got a shipment going out to Reach's Five Year Program. After that, I'll insert this into the shipments to the front lines. Should get there by Christmas."

* * *

**2230 Hours, December 24th, Meitere**

Lieutenant Ligachev glanced around the interior of the vehicle, slowly taking in his surroundings. Having just awoken, the vehicle was a non-sequitor, something that didn't follow. He'd been with the artillery company, manning five towed rocket artillery trailers, saturating a point on the horizon with cluster munitions. And now he was...

Ambulance. He was in a Panther ambulance, maybe one of the new Cougars. The way the equipment was slowly rocking on the walls, not bouncing, they were on a highway far away from where he'd been stationed.

He found the last thing he remembered. He'd been standing on the Sinoviet artillery tractor, fixing the radar mast so they could see where they were shooting. An engineer had taken over, so he'd dismounted to help unload munitions.

After a minute of concentration, he gave up and tried moving his limbs. He could feel something in his arms, but it might be his imagination.

Someone had shouted, but it was impossible to hear over the roar of the rockets. And then a bolt of lightning had stabbed him in the back and he'd fallen and the rocket he was carrying had fallen onto him, and...

There. Right above him, there had been a distortion, a bright spot in the cloudy sky. Ligachev's blood was dripping from part of that distortion, shimmering into existence and falling out of his sight. That vision was seared into his memory, would occupy his waking thoughts and nightmares for years to come.

"He's awake," someone may or may not have said. Either way, a medic hovered over him, checking his vitals. "You're paralyzed below the waist. It can be corrected with surgery, but get used to wheelchairs."

Ligachev wanted to ask about the rest of the company, if they were still in action or if he had been recovered from the rubble hours later. He couldn't move his jaw, couldn't get the words out.

The medic picked the multilingual instructions out of an open medical kit, folded them, and pressed them into Ligachev's hand. She then helped him hold it in front of his face so he could read them.

_Merry Christmas!_

_About two and a half thousand years ago, a man was born so he could die to save Humanity. More recently, you risked life and limb to save Humanity as well, and you survived. Or you may yet pay the ultimate price._

_Your sacrifices have brought your friends, your family, and the untold billions of people you'll never meet a few more hours of safety, security, and happiness. On behalf of them, thank you for your selflessness. Thank you for giving this season, when many have forgotten how to. We hope and pray that cheer and good health may be yours in the near future._

_Thank you._

Ligachev closed his eyes and nodded. The medic lay his arm down gently and stepped away to attend to another patient.

He'd lost his legs, perhaps permanently. Many good people had died upon that hill, to the cloaked Elites or to the Seraph raids. Their reward was mere gratitude. It didn't seem fair, but it was. The men and women had joined the Army out of an age-old instinct to protect home and family from the Outside regardless of the fate awaiting them. That such noble people not be forgotten was a fitting reward.

Ligachev thought he could feel the paper of the card in his hands, and held on tightly. It was a light, a candle in what would have been a dark hour for him. He knew that even darker times were approaching, and he needed all the candles he could find.

* * *

**Office of Naval Intelligence Communique #****12549/213/K1-M1/7****  
Encryption: White  
Encryption Key: RGD-11****  
****From: ****Ken Banes, Senior Field Liaison (Section One) [LocDAT]**  
**To: ****Jack Dainson, Domestic Analyst (Section One) [LocDAT]**

_Well, Jack, you were right. Boltzmann used the instruction printer to add Christmas cards to the medical kits._ **[Open relevant file]**

_Technically, he's guilty of trespassing, misappropriation of gov't goods, conspiracy, and dissemination of propaganda. Good luck finding a prosecutor willing to take him to court over it. Hell, Genedyne is adopting the cards as company policy._

**[Enclosed]** _are a series of proposals my team came up with to prevent Innies from using this method for their own ends. Have your people go over it, and give me a feasibility estimate by Friday._

_Thanks._

**

* * *

0843 Hours, 29th December, Department of Public Information Parking Garage**

Josh leafed through the journal in his car, comparing his card to that done by professionals. The project that had consumed him for the past two weeks had taken up less than half the journal. Now he mused over those empty spaces, the infinite possibilities they held. The first page would be dedicated to a list of ideas for future projects, but after that? Who knew?

The journal was proof that he could be creative, and it brought peace during the most frustrating times of his job. It was, hands down, the best Christmas present he'd ever had.

* * *

**A/N: Mkay. This one was difficult for me to write. Not just because two previous Christmas Specials got scrapped, but because it's awkward for me to refer to characters by first names, and to introduce them without ranks. Possibly a sign that I need to branch out more.**

**The genesis of this story was a factoid I ran across once about how American medical kits were assembled by families back home who would insert their addresses into the medical kits. The servicemen who used the kits would then write home and thank them. Simpler times, maybe.**

**Of course, it was a bit of a struggle to take that idea and expand it into a oneshot. I think that defines all the holiday specials I write: Last minute panic. Desperately trying to spin a yarn and avoid the idea that I'm cranking out crap.**

**Merry Christmas, everyone. If you know a service member or a veteran, please send your regards these holidays.  
**


End file.
